Two Pakistani Men Sentenced to Death for ‘Blasphemy’

I continue to be absolutely appalled by the fascist and barbaric use of blasphemy laws to not just punish but murder people who say things the religious authorities in many countries don’t like. In Pakistan, two men have been sentenced to death for claiming they saw God.

Additional Sessions Judge Chaudhry Zafar Iqbal on Saturday awarded death sentences to two men he found guilty of blasphemy.

According to the prosecution, Riaz Ahmed, 34, and Ijaz Ahmed, 38, residents of Haroonabad, devotees of Chaman Sarkar in Gujrat district, had claimed in 2011 that they had seen God.

Qari Muhammad Ahmed, 27, the complainant, a resident of Haroonabad, said that the convicts had also invited other people to join them in their union with God through Chaman Sarkar.

Their defense attorney, Malik Ghulam Qasim, said, “We seriously need to reconsider the blasphemy law and its enforcement.” In Pakistan, that means he’s committed blasphemy too and his life is probably in danger as well. Utterly barbaric.

So, they would have killed mohommed/jesus? I mean, they both claimed to have spoken with/for god at the time as well.

Funny how so many religious worship someone (who probably didn’t exist) who would today be, at best, locked up in a mental institution.

typecaster

So, they would have killed mohommed/jesus? I mean, they both claimed to have spoken with/for god at the time as well.

To be fair, according to the Christian myth Jesus WAS killed for his religious statements. And Mohammed’s claim isn’t that he saw God, but that the angel Gabriel dictated the Koran to him. It’s entirely different if you’re in contact with a subsidiary deity instead of the primary one. Some of us have doubts about both statements, but that’s one reason why I never plan to live in Pakistan. Or the American South.

Butler @ #8 reminds me of the simpson’s episode where Homer says it’s a magical animal that produces bacon, ham, pork chops, and ribs. He’s right of course. Nothing to do with blasphemy laws, but those laws are so ridiculously abhorrent I have difficulty comprehending them (and I lived in the mid-east for 3 yrs where the remnants of past deities litters the country: the irony is lost upon the zealots).

Crudely Wrott

Additional Sessions Judge Chaudhry Zafar Iqbal on Saturday awarded death sentences to two men he found guilty of blasphemy.